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Extreme Programming is extreme in the sense that it takes its principles and practices to the point of absurdity- if code reviews are good, we'll review all the time; if testing is good, everybody will test all the time; if refactoring is good, we'll make it part of everybody's daily business; if architecture is important, everybody will work defining and refining the architecture all the time; if integration testing is important, then we'll integrate and test several times a day; if short iterations are good, we'll make the iterations really, really short- seconds and minutes and hours, not weeks and months and years. (KentBeck, Embracing Change)

"If you don't think it's extreme, you don't understand it." XP kills more sacred cows than anything else I've seen. Killed at least one of mine I didn't know I had. Most everyone has one, and XP probably kills it. When someone says, "We're sort of doing XP" it means they are just doing the parts they like and pretending its XP. (AlistairCockburn)

A number of noted hackers (Gosling and Gabriel among them) have said, "Isn't that how everybody programs?" and seemed genuinely surprised to hear that the answer is "No". I have had several people thank me for saying out loud what was in their hearts- XP doesn't seem extreme to them. (KentBeck )

I'm waiting to hear Gosling and Gabriel assert that they always wrote/write production code in pairs. I'll be astonished if they really write test cases before they code, and only code up to the test cases, and really have 100% test cases running in an automated regression test harness. I'll be astonished if they play the planning game or the same thing by any other name. I think they're just agreeing with the spirit of XP, not its details. (AlistairCockburn)

Von Totally awesome software?:

By the middle of 1996, Beck decided to give his management concept a name. Because other methodologies emphasized planning over programming, Beck decided that "programming" should be in the title. Still, "I needed an adjective that would be catchy, descriptive and defensible," Beck says.

Beck says decided to name his methodology "extreme programming" after noting the intensity of extreme athletes. "I wanted my teams to have that same sense of fearlessness in the face of challenge," he says.